Is there anything in the Lincoln lore to help Obama cope with the raging financial crisis and global economic meltdown he's facing as he takes office?

Nine of Lincoln's pop music highlights

One film is well-known and canonical: John Ford made Young Mr. Lincoln, starring Henry Fonda. On the other hand, John Cromwell's Abe Lincoln in Illinois, with Raymond Massey, has been largely forgotten.

Vidal paints Lincoln as a supreme master of his mediocre profession—politics. He also becomes something more: a self-aware, tragic entity, almost worthy of the adulation heaped upon him by subsequent generations.